


Miserére mei, Deus: secúndum magnam misericordiam tuam

by wildechilde17



Category: The White Queen (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:52:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2337554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildechilde17/pseuds/wildechilde17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no light left in his eyes but his soul may yet see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miserére mei, Deus: secúndum magnam misericordiam tuam

The field, mud and blue sky, darkens. His body refuses to follow his commands, his body as traitorous as Lord Stanley.

My sister is here, she had said, and my son, Edward. He should have known the day’s sky darkening as though it were the dead of night was a sign from the Lord himself that he was taking his Anne, his sun from his sky. A sun taken as punishment for his many sins, a sun taken for his stubborn pride.

I have not made confession; the rites they’ll not be given. Henry Tudor can take his heavy crown for I sought it not but Dómine Jesu, Jesu, in your infinite mercy let me see my wife and child.

Anne, I shamed you. I used you as your father once had, as a pawn upon my chess board, tis true. Sweet Anne, I never loved another and I did not do as they said I did. My Anne, I swear it, I never harmed any child of my blood be they illegitimately got or true nephews. He would scream it if his mouth would open, if there were breath left to give his voice life.

Confíteor Deo omnipoténti… Miserére mei, Deus: secúndum magnam misericordiam tuam.

O God have mercy on my soul, I see no one.

There is no pain, not even the ache across his back that he has carried thoughtlessly for years.

Silence. Pressure. Darkness.

Light.

Light as though through stained glass, smoked with colour.

He thinks to shield his eyes from its sudden intensity but this light does not hurt his eyes. He is seeing this light with no eyes at all.

“Richard.”

He turns to the voice without thought for his body lying upon Bosworth Field.

“You love me, truly,” the voice says with a certainty he never heard in life.

“Anne?” he asks of the golden shape in front of him. “Anne, my wife, my queen, for I love no other. Anne, can it be you?”

“My Richard, I have you now. You are not alone for we have each other. We are safe.”

“Safe?” he begs of the apparition.

“Safe and whole and hale once again, as was promised.”

“I have sinned,” he says, afraid to reach for the woman coalescing into an Anne he has not seen since he took her from sanctuary, a young Anne, a strong Anne, a defiant Anne. “I have sinned and there is none left who will say mass for my soul. Anne, nought are left to remember me in their prayers. Payment will be exacted. It is little mercy to see you now if I am to be taken to purgatory. Oh Anne, I may yet be hell bound.”

Her hand, as soft and small as he had memory of it, reaches out and cups his cheek. He has a cheek. There is no blood were she presses. The mud of the damnable field no longer stains his face. There is a twist to her lips and he remembers the way she had given herself away railing against Margaret Beaufort’s proposal.

“Infinite mercy, my husband, you’ll not go where I cannot follow.”

**Author's Note:**

> Following from 1400's conception of death and heaven (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmcEHzcEEI4) and Richard III's contemporarily documented piety and faith (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-21786634). Loyaulté me lie.


End file.
